35 ESPN experts made preseason predictions on which teams would make the NBA Finals. Only one correctly picked both the Heat and Spurs. Unfortunately for ESPN, this pundit is no longer with the network.

The pundit’s name? John Hollinger.

Advertisement

Hollinger joined the front office of the Memphis Grizzlies last December but not before making his preseason selections. While all but one of ESPN’s 35 ‘experts’ picked the Heat to make the Finals, Hollinger was alone in picking the Spurs, which is mildly surprising given that Vegas pegged the Spurs’ odds at about 14%. Here is a summary of the collective picks along with the corresponding Vegas odds at the time.

So what is the prognosticating class saying about the Finals? Well, let’s first take a look at how they have done this playoffs so far. Here is a recap of how the pundits collectively fared in each series:

Matchup

Hit Rate #

Hit Rate %

Vegas Odds

Comments

Heat-Bucks

33/33

100%

97%

Pacers-Hawks

32/33

97%

78%

Henry Abbott (ESPN) Wrong

Bulls-Nets

15/35

43%

44%

Knicks-Celtics

34/35

97%

75%

Chris Forsberg (ESPN) Wrong

Thunder-Rockets

33/33

100%

93%

Spurs-Lakers

34/35

97%

86%

Amin Elhassan (ESPN) Wrong

Warriors-Nuggets

2/33

6%

23%

Ken Berger (ESPN) & Chris Mannix (SI) Right

Grizzlies-Clippers

8/31

26%

38%

Heat-Bulls

22/22

100%

88%

Pacers-Knicks

6/21

29%

39%

Grizzlies-Thunder

19/21

90%

55%

Bradford Doolittle (ESPN) & Ian Thomsen (SI) Wrong

Spurs-Warriors

21/22

95%

87%

Adry Torres (ESPN) Wrong

Heat-Pacers

23/23

100%

83%

Spurs-Grizzlies

15/23

65%

63%

As has been the case in each of the past four playoffs, there have been four upsets so far this year: Bulls/Nets, Warriors/Nuggets, Grizzlies/Clippers, and Pacers/Knicks.

We have tracked 13 pundits from ESPN and CBS Sports who have made predictions for each of the fifteen playoff series this year. Here are their rankings by Yield—which is the average payout had you bet $1 on each of their predictions—along with their predictions for the Finals. You can make your own predictions for both the Series and Game 1 (plus other propositions) by visiting PunditTracker’s NBA page (click here) and using the “Vote Now” buttons. We will grade you afterwards.

Pundit

Hit Rate

Yield

Prediction

Ken Berger, CBS

11/14

$1.22

Spurs in 6

Amin Elhassan, ESPN

11/14

$1.18

Spurs in 6

Michael Wallace, ESPN

11/14

$1.10

Heat in 7

Tom Haberstroh, ESPN

11/14

$1.10

Heat in 7

Zach Harper, CBS

11/14

$1.10

Heat in 7

Kevin Pelton, ESPN

11/14

$1.08

Heat in 7

Kevin Arnovitz, ESPN

11/14

$1.08

Heat in 7

J.A. Adande, ESPN

11/14

$1.08

Heat in 7

Henry Abbott, ESPN

10/14

$1.06

Heat in 7

Royce Young, CBS

10/14

$0.96

Spurs in 7

Brian Windhorst, ESPN

10/14

$0.95

Heat in 7

Israel Gutierrez, ESPN

10/14

$0.91

Heat in 6

Vegas Favorites

10/14

$0.91

Heat in 5 or 7

Matt Moore, CBS

9/14

$0.80

Heat in 6

The group has had a decent showing so far, with nine of the thirteen returning a positive yield. Ken Berger of CBS Sports has turned in the best performance, thanks mostly to his pick of the Warriors to beat the Nuggets. ESPN’s Amin Elhassan is #2, buoyed by his picks of the Bulls to beat the Nets and Pacers to beat the Knicks, which more than offset his unfortunate prediction of the Lakers to beat the Spurs. Matt Moore of CBS sits at the bottom of the rankings.

Finally, here are the 16 NBA Playoff Pundits that have Profile Pages on PunditTracker because they have made at least 25 predictions, ranked by their cumulative performance over the past four playoffs: